


A Spouse from the Woodland Realm

by Saraste



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Braids, Dwarf Culture & Customs, Gigolas Week 3, M/M, Meeting the Parents, post!War of the Ring, references to The Hobbit: DoS, some sansûkhul influence, wedding braids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 14:27:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5337482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saraste/pseuds/Saraste
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gimli and Legolas return home to the North after the War of the RIng and Gimli presents his new spouse to his father. </p>
<p>-</p>
<p>(I almost named this 'A Bride from the Woodland Realm' as a joke but didn't.) I'm a sucker for braiding and might use this 'braiding your own hair into one's spouses marriage braid' as a plot-device in later braiding fics. I rather like the idea.</p>
<p>Written for gigolas week 3, day 2: outdider POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Spouse from the Woodland Realm

Every elf who sees the two of them _knows_ instantly. It is all writ larger than life on every single glance which Legolas bestows upon his lover. There is an unmistakable intensity in his eyes as he does, for those who have the eyes to see, who are _willing_ to see.

Dwarves, however, take longer. For dwarrows love in more subtle ways even when they carry the signs of their love in their skin and braids. If a dwarrow takes the time to look, really look, at the braids on Gimli Gloínul's proud head of hair, it is clear as day. Though that in itself is a little difficult as it is also considered quite rude to openly stare at another dwarrows marriage braids.

And it is as clear to those who look that those very same braids have _not_ been braided in by dwarwish fingers, not all of them, but those which are customarily braided in by one's lover... or spouse.

*

Gloín, son of Groin, sighs as he first meets his son after the long time they have been apart. _He_ sees the braids for what they are. Two braids, one containing a smaller braid plaited from pale strands of hair interwoven into it and that very same braided with an unpractised hand.

And those same braids are woven into the hair of one Legolas Thranduilion, who is standing there beside his son.

An elf.

His son had gone and married an ELF.

But Gloín can also see the way the elf's clear unsettling eyes glaze over when he is not looking at Gimli and are full of life from the moment he looks at Gimli again. There is a story there, Gloín surmises, but a story for later, when they are past the first steps of introduction. For Gloín has not actually met this elf in roughly eighty years. If anything, they have _never_ been formally introduced. He does not count being threatened at blade-point a proper introduction.

"Adad..." Gimli begins, and his father can see how very nervous her is. They are standing just outside the gates of Erebor, lingering wounds of not-so-past battle still marring the ground between the gates and Dale.

A gust of wind takes control of pale elven hair and buffets it this way and that and gives Gloín a clear enough view of red hair interwoven in a marriage braid. His eyes meet the elf's as he looks back to his son and the son of Thranduilion... blushes.

"Gimli, my son!" Gloín grabs his star into his arms and squeezes the breath out of him. "Welcome home!"

Then he turns to the elf. Who seems to try and look like he is not nervous over meeting the father of his husband. The elf bows to him. "Legolas Thranduilion, at your service."

Gloín gives his son a look at the dwarwish greeting and then does something in the spur of the moment. He grabs the elf into an embrace, too. The tall thing is a little stiff at first and then returns the welcome of arms with his own. "Gloín, son of Groin, at your service. Welcome to the family!" Gloín booms.

He is rewarded by the relieved sigh that Gimli lets out. Gloín has seen enough death to deny his son his One, for there could be no other reason for his son wedding an elf, and there is no keeping the two apart after marriage braids have been put it in. To do so would be unseemly.

... he does plan to remind his new son-in-law of a certain long ago slight, however. Yet not just now. For now he leads the newly-weds inside for a feast in their return, to celebrate the downfall of Sauron, the return of heroes of war and to toast to a love found in uncertain times and in the most unlikeliest of places.

 


End file.
